Habyarimana Death: Kagame Warns of Showdown with France

Rwanda President Paul Kagame has vowed to take on France following the reopening of an investigation into the shooting down of President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane in 1994 at then Kanombe Airport.

“France should be the one tried for genocide,” said Kagame on Monday while presiding over the new judicial year at Parliament Building in Kigali.

“After investigating the case for two years and not finding anything, they want to start allover again,” wondered the head of state, adding, “I have no problem with that. But if starting allover again is a showdown, then we will have a showdown.”

French prosecutors last week revealed plans to reexamine the case with the view of listening to former Rwanda army chief, Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa.

The exiled general who fought alongside Kagame in the RPF war that brought the current government to power, recently accused the president of complicity in the plane attack.

Habyarimana’s killing marked the beginning of the 1994 genocide.

Kagame has for long maintained the genocide, in which about one million people mostly Tutsi were killed, was planned long before Habyarimana’s death.

Nyamwasa, who broke ties with Kagame before fleeing Kigali to South Africa, is expected to tell French investigators that Kagame personally ordered the shooting of Habyarimana’s plane, according to informed sources.

The recent development has since strained ties between France and Rwanda.

Kigali accuses Paris of arming the genocidal regime of Habyarimana and sheltering the masterminds of the 1994 slaughter.

Kagame told the judiciary on Monday that, “This Rwanda; the judicial system is not subordinate to France or French interests.”

He added: “We have decided that we are not going to be deterred from our responsibility to deliver justice and dignity to the Rwandan people.”

The President said Rwanda is dealing with “people who think they own you, treat you in a manner that doesn’t meet standards used for their own people.”